


Lost & Found

by tangiblewhimsy



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M, shoneenclub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 11:25:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangiblewhimsy/pseuds/tangiblewhimsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sho's never met a dog who wouldn't talk to him before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost & Found

**Author's Note:**

> August 2012 contest entry for [shoneenclub@lj](http://shoneenclub.livejournal.com). First place winner! Contest theme was "Powers".

Sho's feet hurt. There were probably a lot of other things he could say about his day: he was tired, he was hungry, it was one of those days when he'd hated his job. Right at the moment, however, the worst part was that his feet hurt.

The walk from the train station never seemed so long as when he was absolutely beat. Sho had a license but because of how much it cost to upkeep a car these days he'd never seriously considered buying a vehicle. Except for on the days when every step felt like hot needles and the pain radiated up his calves, turning a normally pleasant 7 minute walk into a forced march that stretched miles and miles with home always being just within sight but not yet there.

The inadvertent dragging of his feet slowed Sho's pace considerably, and looking back on it later he'd likely realize that if he hadn't been so tired and mopey he probably never would have noticed the turned over trash bins. Pausing, Sho watched as an empty tuna can rolled out from the side street and spiraled to a stop just before his feet. With a frown, he stooped to pick it up carefully and walk it back to the bin. If it was a raccoon or something he'd tell him or her where they could find better food without wrecking his neighborhood.

Rounding a set of low hedges that separated the area where garbage bins were put from the main street, Sho stopped.

“Er... Hello,” Sho blinked in surprise.

Staring back at him from where it'd been rummaging through the trash was a shiba inu. It was black and tan and probably the most guilty looking and tense dog Sho had ever seen. Especially considering it didn't look to be starving.

“I... Uh, I heard you from the street,” Sho said, gesturing behind him. The dog continued to stare. “You don't have to be frightened or anything. I thought you were a raccoon and I was going to tell you someplace to go, but it's not the kind of stuff most dogs would like.”

The dog continued to stare. Sho shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, feeling more nervous than he had in a very long time.

“You're oddly quiet,” he commented with a slight pout. Sighing, he looked back up the street. His apartment door was just a block ahead and he was _so tired_.

“Here, how about this,” Sho said, turning back to the shiba inu. “How about I put all of this back in the trash and then you come with me and I'll make you dinner?”

The dog's head inclined slightly to the left as he observed Sho. If Sho had to guess, he'd say that it looked like he was being sized up. It was the strangest thing for Sho, he'd always thought he'd gotten along with dogs really well. This one seemed... More shrewd, somehow. After a period of silence the dog huffed, licking its muzzle before trotting over to him peaceably. Taking a seat just at the edge of the mess, it looked up at Sho expectantly. When Sho remained staring at him in confusion, it looked at the garbage and then back at Sho, giving a whine.

“Oh, right!” Sho said, still slightly baffled. As he crouched to begin carefully picking up the trash, he couldn't help looking over his shoulder curiously.

He'd never met a dog who wouldn't talk to him before.

 

When he was young people had thought it was cute. A little boy convinced he could speak with animals? What was more adorable than children and animals? Nothing!

As Sho grew older, however, he learned that not everyone could hear what animals were saying. Really, _no one_ Sho had ever met could hear them. His parents started worrying about him as he began advancing in grade school and kept having conversations with the classroom pets. They even took him to a doctor who asked a bunch of questions about voices and whether or not 'someone' ever told him to do bad things. Sho had been confused and upset, wondering what he'd done wrong. Eventually, he'd learned just not to talk about it anymore.

But that didn't mean he could stop listening. The world was a very loud place when you could understand all of its inhabitants.

For all that he could talk to animals, Sho didn't seem to have any real affinity for them. They didn't dislike him at all, nor he them, but he certainly got along a lot better with certain animals more than others. He thought things like rabbits and guinea pigs were adorable, but they were fairly single-minded conversationalists and kind of rude to boot. Cats were alright, especially as kittens, but after a point they gained so much independence that Sho felt like they just didn't need him anymore. Cats had humans pretty well trained and could get their way without translation. And birds just never. Shut. Up.

Dogs were nice, though. Sho had read an article once about how when man had first domesticated canines they'd essentially bred all of the ferocity and survival instinct out of them in favor of companionship. All dogs, no matter their age, usually were just really big puppies. They were typically sweet, in their own ways, and typically bonded with a person on an emotional level. They would be there at the end of the day to give comfort and were usually more than willing to receive it in return. It was an unconditional sort of love that came from perpetually being young at heart, and Sho couldn't help but appreciate them more than most other creatures he encountered.

 

“Ah, let's see... How about Hachiko?” Sho asked his new companion. The shiba inu sneezed at his ankle before shaking its head with a violent flap of ears. Sho grimaced, wiping his ankle on the leg of his sweats.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know it's not very creative. Um, let's see... you don't really have any markings that stand out, so I can't really call you something like Spot. Unless I wanted to be ironic! That could be pretty cute,” Sho looked down at where the dog had taken a seat by his side. It looked unimpressed. Frowning, Sho sighed and tried to think harder.

“Maybe I could name you after food? Plenty of people do that. What do you say to Manju?” Sho asked, dropping down to a crouch. The dog whined at him, ears folding back in displeasure.

“I've never had to name an animal before,” Sho said apologetically, giving the dog a scratch behind its soft ears until they stood up again. “Usually they'd just tell me their names. But you don't talk, so...”

Bright brown eyes looked up at him expectantly. Sho sighed.

“Okay!” he announced, the dog's ears perking up in alarm. Sho laughed and gave it another pet. “We'll find you a name. Somehow. The internet probably has some good lists that we could look at for ideas. I don't want to have to keep calling you 'you' or 'dog'. It feels... well, dehumanizing.”

His new friend seemed to appreciate Sho's sentiment, rushing forward to answer him with a swift lick to his face and neck. Sho gave a manful shriek before falling backwards on his ass, the dog advancing to sit in his lap.

 

All Sho could do was stare.

His kitchen floor was _filthy_. He'd been concerned that maybe his temporary house guest would tip over his garbage can, so he'd hidden it in the pantry. He hadn't anticipated _mud_.

“How did you even get outside?!” Sho demanded, finally turning to the culprit. All he received was an affectionate whine and tail wag in return.

Sho opened his mouth to say something else but deflated when the dog got up and trotted to the center of the kitchen floor. Scratching a few times at the thickest smears of dirt, he looked up as though trying to get Sho to pay attention. At which point Sho stared again.

“Ni...no...?” Sho read, not believing what he was seeing. His dazed confusion was interrupted by an excited bark, causing him to jump. That had been the loudest sound his new friend had made since they'd met.

Seemingly satisfied that his message had been delivered, 'Nino' trotted his way into the house and back towards the bathroom. It took Sho a minute before he was following at a run.

“DON'T TRACK _MORE_ DIRT THROUGH THE HOUSE!”

 

Sho's house guest had been with him two days and a night before he noticed anything exceptionally strange about the dog. Not talking was weird, it made Nino seem eerily quiet, but that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that he didn't really act like a dog.

He would cuddle, which was actually comforting and cute and Sho found that he enjoyed sharing his couch with the bundle of soft fur and bright brown eyes. He would beg and Sho couldn't help it, he'd give in to almost anything Nino showed interest in (even if he knew he really shouldn't, like letting him eat the last of his hamburger). But then he would do something strange, especially when he thought Sho wasn't looking. Most recently Sho had watched as Nino had picked up the TV remote in his mouth and dragged it to the couch before pawing at it to get the TV on and _change channels_. Sho had heard of animals watching TV before, but to his knowledge most dogs didn't find it that interesting. Let alone interesting enough to learn how to work a remote.

Nino'd also do things like let himself out to pee. Sho panicked the first time it happened, he'd thought he'd accidentally left the door open and that Nino had escaped (considering Sho wasn't sure if Nino was a stray or someone's pet it was a little selfish to panic at the thought of him leaving, but that was beside the point). Just as he stepped out onto his porch to start looking, however, his companion trotted his way back into the apartment as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Sho stood on the stoop for several seconds, dumbfounded.

Nino also seemed to listen to him, which wasn't _so_ strange, Sho supposed. He was just used to dogs having very limited attention spans and getting distracted easily. The fact that Nino never said anything but would otherwise respond was... comforting, but odd. Not that Sho didn't appreciate the nuzzling and licking after a long day at work and huffing a tired sigh. Or having a blanket dragged up and over him when he was too tired to get it himself.

 

Sho decided to do the responsible thing and put up posters. Nino had been with him for a few days now, long enough that Sho could feel guilty about not potentially returning someone's pet.

“Just hold still a second, I need a nice picture for the fliers,” Sho chided as he tried once again to get in a good, steady position. Nino huffed an unhappy snort at him before dropping his head down onto his paws and looking up at Sho as if this was insufferably boring.

“Don't look at me like that. If you have another home it's only fair I give them a chance to take you back,” Sho sighed, pouting back at the unhappy canine.

As he went to load the photos onto his laptop, Sho couldn't help noticing how Nino curled up on the corner of his bed, seeming to sulk.

Sho managed to get a flier designed but accidentally forgot to save it before going to sleep.

 

“It's _not_ funny, Masaki!” Sho whined. Despite his protests, however, Sho was starting to grin along with his friend.

“I'm sorry, Sho-chan, really, I just...” Aiba paused, biting his lip so hard that it trembled with the effort of holding back more laughter. In the end, however, he couldn't do it.

“What am I supposed to do? It's the second time! I really like this girl and the first time she came over it was just for a casual date night, but last time we were... You know...” Sho blushed pink to the tips of his ears as he gave yet another reproachful look at Nino. Who was sitting on the couch watching reruns of Kamen Rider and, by all appearances, completely ignoring him. Sho had to admire that he could be completely unrepentant and conveniently clueless like any other pet when it suited him.

When all Aiba did was laugh harder, Sho pouted in earnest. “You're a vet! I thought you could at least give me some help.”

Managing to calm himself down enough to drink from the tea Sho had provided for them, Aiba shook his head. Still chuffing the occasional giggle through his nose, he hummed with thought as he looked across the room to the seemingly content and healthy canine.

“Well, he looks like he's at least two years old. Has he been neutered yet? It can help if he's got a spraying problem.”

Nino's head whipped around, eyes wide with alarm. Standing up on the couch, his ears went back as his fur bristled, growling darkly. When he actually bared his teeth, it was Sho's turn to be alarmed.

 

As a compromise, Sho stopped bringing dates home. Well, _dates_ was probably being generous. Sho stopped bringing the one girl he'd been sort-of seeing home so that Nino would stop peeing on her belongings and Sho would not have to consider having parts of his anatomy surgically removed. It wasn't much of a solution, though, since she told Sho that she really couldn't date someone whose dog didn't like her. Sho could respect that, he honestly could, but it did bring up a few questions.

“Are you even _my_ dog?” Sho asked Nino absently, turning from the soccer game they'd been watching to his furry companion. Nino blinked at him.

Sho realized he'd probably had a beer too many, but he wasn't really in a sullen mood. Just... contemplative.

“You know, I never thought I could handle having a pet because the idea of _owning_ another living thing was weird, especially when I can talk to the rest of you as easily as I can to my neighbors,” Sho sighed, taking another sip of his current beer. “But now I wonder what it would be like if I had a normal dog. Because you,” Sho pointed a single finger at Nino, “You are not a normal dog. I know, because Masaki has dogs and they talk to me. They like things like balls and games and eating good-smelling things out of the garbage. You... don't talk to me.”

Sho didn't mean to pout, but he couldn't help it. For as much as he enjoyed Nino's company, he couldn't help feeling lonely sometimes. The few occasions Sho had toyed with the idea of getting a pet he'd thought that maybe it'd be good to help him stave off this feeling. He liked being social, he liked talking to people. If he had a pet to come home to and talk to then maybe he wouldn't always feel like he was talking to himself. Just his luck that when he finally did get an animal companion he ended up being a mute.

Nino licked his own muzzle, giving a soft whine as he shifted from foot to foot. He looked... Sorry, Sho thought. Then again, it was possible he was just projecting, that he wanted Nino to feel bad for him because at least if someone else felt bad for him it meant he wasn't just wallowing in self-pity. Even as he thought about it, however, Nino pushed forward and gently licked Sho's jaw. Sho grunted but was too tired and too melancholic to push him off.

Nino crawled across his knees, nuzzling at his neck and chest. Sho fell asleep stroking Nino's ears and enjoying the soft warmth of the dog curled up in his lap.

 

Nino was gone.

Sho hadn't noticed at first, which made him feel _awful_. Really, though, he thought that maybe Nino had just gone out for a poop. Sho still didn't know how he got out or back in by himself, but he'd come to accept it as one of the dog's many mysterious talents. When Sho had gone out to call Nino in for breakfast before he had to go to work, however, he didn't come. Nino always came when he called.

Sho tried not to panic as he scoured the apartment. He thought maybe Nino had fallen asleep somewhere and he just hadn't noticed. Not that Nino had a habit of falling asleep in strange places, he mostly slept on the couch or in Sho's bed, but dogs could get into weird places sometimes, right? After two thorough sweeps it was obvious that Nino was not in the apartment. Sho wanted to immediately strike out on a search for his furry companion, but he was already going to be late for work. So anxious he felt sick, Sho left the door unlocked when he left for work. Just in case.

At the end of the day, Nino still wasn't home.

“I didn't mean you should run away on me,” Sho said to his empty apartment as he grabbed his keys and a flashlight and went out to search the neighborhood.

The later it got the less Sho could do. Eventually trekking home, he discovered it was too late to call any of the shelters or pounds to see if anyone had picked up a black shiba inu. Sho was tired and he was hungry, but his stomach was so clenched up he couldn't stand the idea of eating. Instead he went to his laptop, remaking the flier he'd tried to make last time. Only this time the header read “LOST” rather than “FOUND”.

 

Friday was not Sho's day off, but he took it anyway. Time was of the essence when it came to missing people—and animals. He papered his neighborhood, the local train stations and several adjacent areas with his fliers. He visited the various shelters and animal hospitals, contacted the local pounds. Everywhere he left a photo of Nino behind with his phone number and email address.

He was beat from running around all day long. Even though he wanted to go more places, spread the word, search more, Sho was aware that he'd exhausted all of his options for the day. Dragging his feet to the train station he decided to sulk his way home.

The worst part was that it was still so early in the evening. The sun was barely setting by the time he stepped off the train to go home. He could probably make dinner, but with how out of it he was Sho knew he was more likely just to order something disgustingly unhealthy to munch on. He thought about the last time he'd ordered pizza and how Nino had stolen an entire piece despite Sho trying to stop him. At least Nino had been kind enough to vomit in the tub. He was always weirdly considerate like that.

“Damn it,” Sho sighed, pausing in his walk home.

Looking up the road he could see his apartment building easily enough and knew that it'd be a simple matter to get there. The idea of being there _alone_ , though... Sho felt guilty for thinking he'd been lonely when Nino had been around. Nino didn't talk to him, it was true, but they got along in other ways. Sho had grown accustomed to him sleeping under the covers with him, even if it sometimes made things too warm. He'd gotten comfortable with announcing he was home and actually having someone there to hear him.

Looking to his left, Sho spied the little side street he'd first met Nino in. Of course Nino wasn't there now, but it didn't stop Sho from taking a second to poke his head around a decorative bush to look. Trashcans, completely undisturbed. No dogs in sight. Shoulders slouching even further than normal with dejection, Sho turned towards home.

He had finally made it to his building and was fumbling around in his jacket pocket for his keys when Sho heard a voice from behind.

“Excuse me?”

Sho turned, not having enough energy to be startled, but he was surprised and slightly confused just the same. Giving a half wave of his unoccupied hand, Sho did his best to give a congenial smile.

“Hello! Can I help you?”

The man standing before Sho was shorter but not exactly small. His shaggy hair was an inky black and it curled about his ears just over the collar of his jacket. The eyes were what got Sho, though. They were a warm, honeyed brown that caught the evening light in just the right way so that they practically glowed. With a pang, Sho realized they reminded him of Nino's.

“Actually, I was wondering if I could help you,” the man answered somewhat cryptically, giving a wry grin. As Sho continued to stare in confusion, the man pulled from his back pocket one of Sho's various fliers. “Is this your dog?”

“Have you seen him??” Sho asked, realizing that he sounded far too eager but beyond caring. His desperation must have showed on his face, however, because the expression of the man on his doorstep was clearly bewildered. Sho did his best to rein himself in.

After a brief and entirely awkward pause, the stranger ducked his head slightly and gave a short laugh. Shrugging his shoulders, he folded up the paper again.

“You really want him back, huh?” the stranger asked and Sho couldn't help frowning. He knew it was irrational, but for a moment Sho wondered if this person had potentially kidnapped his dog.

“Yes,” Sho said firmly, turning to fully face the man on his porch. He was drawing himself up to make a threat when those bright brown eyes looked up at him.

“Even if he doesn't talk to you?” the man asked with the quirk of an eyebrow.

Sho's jaw dropped straight to the floor. How – How could this person possibly know that? A slight grin at Sho's expense and a soft giggle had the man's eyes creasing just so and Sho saw it.

“ _Nino?!_ ”

“I'm not much better at talking when I'm like this,” The-stranger-that-was-Nino warned, pink visibly creeping across his face. “But I won't shed on anything or pee on anyone's shoes.”

Although a beat later he added with a grin, “Probably.”

*Art is mine, do not reupload or steal. © 2012


End file.
